As a tiny, insignificant being in this vast universe full of wonders, there clearly are some phenomena that you just DON'T GET, no matter how much time you spend trying to comprehend them. I don't get bitches. I don't get religion. I don't get why The Godfather is supposedly a masterpiece. I don't get why anyone reads horoscopes. I don't get what the whole fuss is about getting married. I don't get Luxembourgish teenagers. I don't get, after having read a whole book on psychological mechanisms of advertising, why with the enormous amounts of money spent on it, so many commercials look like they're trying to create new realms of lameness.
Sometimes I think that in the same way 60's and 70's fashion keeps reappearing in society, the Stone Age is now making its great comeback. And I certainly don't get how grown-up women can spend their time reading articles on how Brad is cheating on Angelina while Angelina, oh dear God, has cellulite on her ass, though that's not so surprising after giving birth to this many kids. And by the way, WE know who the REAL fathers of each of her children are, including the "adopted" African "orphans"—yeah that's right, they're not adopted and they're not orphans, they are her actual babies she had with 50 Cent after countless nights of unimaginably wild sex. And why are the kids so black? Well, Angelina IS actually black, duh, she changed her skin color AND her sex when she was 14, after her mother revealed to her she was having a lesbian affair with Marilyn Monroe. You thought Marilyn Monroe was dead by that time? Well, so did a lot of people, you foolish, useless, ignorant morons!
Looks like someone is a little behind on celebrity gossip! How are you going to impress the man of your dreams now? Oh, don't you worry, just go to page 17 and read all about the art of seduction and releasing your inner tigress so that he will beg for mercy while you're covering his body with whipped cream… and not only whipped cream, add some strawberries, ice cream, a little flour, two eggs, sugar, baking powder, and voila, you've got a heavenly delicious cake… with an even more delicious surprise hidden inside it. That's right, ladies, work your way through to your man's genitals, gradually immersing yourselves in more and more intense levels of pleasure, and when you're fat like a pig from all the cake and sperm you've swallowed (because it's good for your skin), just commence the new potato diet, which guarantees you'll lose 20 pounds in two days. Hey, it worked for Katy Perry. Basically you stuff yourself with as many potatoes as possible, wash them down with vodka and illegal substances, and then pass out in a coma. During that time you're fed only through a drip. And THAT'S the ultimate diet. You literally don't even realize you're losing all the pounds!
Yeah, so these are the things I have a little trouble grasping, but fortunately I always have a vague inkling as to why. Maybe I'm too stupid. Maybe I'm too smart. Maybe I'm too young. Maybe I'm too old. However, there is one thing that simply exceeds my brain's comprehension threshold, leaving me to endless ruminations during which I start losing my faith in humanity interchangeably with doubting my own sanity:
Trolololololololol y u no herrrp and derrrrp FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU like a boss can i haz cheezburger le jufuhcjghcfdfjhvbkeufrrrrrgbhdbfiurs.
I'm sorry, I didn't know how to put it elegantly, but at least the rest of the time I write in coherent sentences, using correct grammar, spelling, and actual words—something that cannot be attributed to the creators, users, and fans of Memebase. I've never actually had the joy of visiting the website itself, until earlier today, when I decided to conduct thorough research in order to write this professional, unbiased article based on solid facts and data, rather than speculations, prejudice, superstitions, dreams, and nightmares of this guy…
and this guy…
…chasing me in a dark forest.
Yeah. These guys. I think they're supposed to be the embodiments of this whole culture, and somewhat cult figures amongst their followers. Actually, as I type this, there are two people online on my Facebook chat who have theses noble faces as their profile pictures—including my own brother who, by the way, was adopted.
I'm not sure what it is supposed to manifest, but it seems to me like the equivalent of 12-year-old girls putting up photos of their favorite pop singers or Taylor Lautner's abs. Except this is a hundred times worse, because what on Earth have these guys—I don't know what their names are, so I'm just going to refer to them as The One With the Gag Reflex Stimulating Face and The One Who Looks Like the Cookie Monster's Evil Twin—done to deserve the praise and glory? Okay, it's not like I think Taylor Lautner's bare chest is worth exposing more than your own pretty face, but at least I can understand teenage girls' need to share the object of their developing horniness; all Mr. Gag Reflex Stimulating Face and Mr. Cookie Monster's Evil Twin seem to be doing is making scary face expressions at the end of each comic. I assume it's supposed to be like a punchline and a trademark in one, but I just can't understand what is so punchliney about a stickman that looks like it was drawn by a raging toddler.
Not gonna lie, it makes me a bit panicky wondering where the world is going. Sometimes I think that in the same way 60's and 70's fashion keeps reappearing in society, the Stone Age is now making its great comeback. It struck me after the third film of the asdf movie saga came out and the most quoted line among the people around me was: "OOOOOOOOOH AAAAAAAAAH":
I couldn't help the feeling I was surrounded by hungry orangutans. After convincing myself that I was perfectly safe and that those people had no intentions of attacking me, mainly because orangutans don't eat humans, I nevertheless realized that a drastic change is bound to happen in our society if things continue this way. Of course there is no escape, but I cautiously decided to play a futurologist in order to prepare myself as much as possible. And so, for the first time in my life, trying to ignore the feeling of disgrace clustering inside of me, I typed http://www.memebase.com/ into my Google Chrome bar and quickly pressed enter so as to avoid any hesitation.
There is nothing better than ruining the intimacy of sexual intercourse by having a rapist-looking dude clinging tightly to your penis. After bravely browsing through the pages like a sailor through a storm, trying to ignore the horrendous apocalyptic images appearing in my head, I managed to put the results of my research together and came to a couple of rather daunting conclusions.
First, the English language as we know it will pretty much cease to exist.
While situations like this one are still rather common (thank God), it is only a matter of time. In a few generations, when insemination through Skype will become possible, and babies will be born permanently wired to computers by a sort of high-tech umbilical cord, constantly exposed to all the wonders of the Internet, they will naturally create a creole out of the memespeak. The intentionally grammatically impaired sentences, the simplicity of which is attempted to be balanced by the sophistication of nonchalantly adding "le" here and there, will be used as a base. As a result, my linguistic-futurologist studies predict that the future language will most probably have a form reminiscent of the following:
"Rrrrrr k 31 kdjgf ssssss? Lllo v?"
"F."
Translated to modern English:
"Has it ever, during the 31 years of your existence, struck your eyes just how overwhelming the subtle beauty of an exhaust pipe is, with its noble yet humble shape, like a young swan's slender neck, with the gas emitting from it like a courageous soldier's last breath on a frosted battlefield, giving away his young soul for martyrdom, dying in solitude on a freezing cold afternoon, the last breath an embodiment of all his pain and struggle, like desperate last words encapsulated in the icy air he is breathing out? Can you see how such a seemingly insignificant object symbolizes all that we humans must burden in our scattered souls on our paths through the infernal journey that is life—the feeling of hopelessness, being solely victims of fate, bearing with God's injustice, doubting in the sense of our existence and yet fighting every day, vainly searching for beauty that would heal our souls and never losing faith that one day we will be granted eternal peace?"
"Sure, now shut up and suck my cock."
Second, during my research I was reminded of the phenomenon of making what has become known as a "hurr durr derp face."
I'm not going to ponder on the origins and significance of it, for it will always remain an unsolved mystery to me, but what I didn't realize before was how omnipresent it was. I've already seen people on Facebook trying to imitate that glorious face expression—for that is the most sophisticated level of profile picture, outrunning the ones I mentioned previously, where you put up a picture of Cookie Monster's Evil Twin or his companions, or Photoshop them onto your own face. And I thought that was where the whole thing ended, but no… during my research I was a little horrified to discover that apparently the world is full of hidden animals, cartoon characters, and celebrities that make this face—and I'm assuming the job of a Memebase user is to document them or dig them out from various archives.
Having seen that, it is not hard to predict what the future will look like when Memebase grows to become a worldwide corporation and our planet is full of people cuddling under Cookie Monster's Evil Twin covers, drinking from Forever Alone guy mugs (I actually learned to distinguish between different kinds of Rage Comics characters yesterday; before it was all the same guy to me), and having sex in Mr. Gag Reflex Stimulating Face condoms, because there is nothing better than ruining the intimacy and romanticism of sexual intercourse by having a rapist-looking dude clinging tightly to your penis.
It's all going to start innocently. Since Memebase will be able to afford to pay its users for publishing those hurr durr derp pictures, logically people will become determined to publish as many of them as possible. The more famous the hurr durr derper, the better. Actually, here are a couple of little graphs I've produced to illustrate the correlations:
So, as I was saying, it's going to start innocently. At first, instinctively, cameras will be installed in various places with special hurr durr derp detectors in them that will take a snapshot when a person makes the aforementioned face—a bit of the equivalent of a smile detector in digital cameras. Somewhat intimidating, thinking there is probably one in your house, I know, but on the bright side, everybody will get to feel like a movie star. You know those times when you were having fun pressing "pause" on the DVD player just so you could laugh at the actor's facial expression? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Later on, subtle manipulation and bribery will be introduced. For example at a friendly, charming, child-loving photographer's with a voice that celebrities make when they're on Sesame Street. "Here, now your son can have a FUN picture… let's take a fun picture, shall we? *Moves closer and whispers furiously while shoving a five dollar bill and a bunch of cookies in the boy's hand* "Hurr…durr…derp…NOW."
But since there will always be authorities that would detect and ban such procedures, no matter how much money made on raging stickmen you give them, Memebase developers and agents will have to take more drastic steps. Using their collusion with some of the most advanced experimental scientists, they will be able to develop a drug causing specific paralysis of the facial muscles, resulting in a permanent hurr durr derpization. The Derperizer will at first be cautiously slipped into people's drinks in bars, clubs, and restaurants, but it won't be long until Memebase takes over hospitals in a bloody revolution and the drug is administered to babies at birth. Meanwhile, a few advancements will be introduced to the Derperizer so that the effects of the permanent derperization will be passed from mother to child, allowing Memebasers to withdraw from hospitals and save lots of money.
The rest will be history: billions of dollars will be spent trying to find an antidote for the effects of derperization, millions will be spent on plastic surgeries (which will only make people look more dreadful), and countless more money on court cases in which the derperized victim tries to sue the Memebase corporation, which will have taken over all the courts as well. And it will all be in vain anyway. In the end, people will accept derperization as a part of evolution. After all, if you think about it, derperized facial muscles seem to be surprisingly well adapted to their new inarticulate language. Try to say pfdsdfghig with a straight face. Not so easy, eh?